Obama to become first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Barack Obama has announced he will visit Hiroshima, Japan, becoming the first sitting president to visit the site where the US dropped an atomic bomb in 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people in the final days of the second world war.

In a statement the White House confirmed the visit, saying Obama’s visit will “highlight his continued commitment to pursuing peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons”.

Earlier this month the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said the president does not believe the US should apologize for its use of atom bombs on Japan in 1945, a point reiterated by his national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, on Tuesday.

“He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II”, Rhodes wrote in a post on Medium. “This visit will offer an opportunity to honor the memory of all innocents who were lost during the war.”

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/10/obama-hiroshima-japan-visit-second-world-war

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Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Alan Yuhas in New York
Tuesday 10 May 2016 14.16 BST

[Nye Bevan]

1. I'm happy that he is not going to apologize.

That would be like apologizing in Normandy for the D-Day landings.

[forest444]

5. So you've told us. Does that mean that Germany has nothing to apologize for in regards to the blitz?

Or do you exclude your own country from that callous standard of yours.

[pangaia]

2. “highlight his continued commitment to pursuing peace and security in a world

without nuclear weapons."

Except for us. of course.

And this after Kissinger...
And buffalo instead of human beings..

[StarTrombone]

3. He should apologize for FDR's decision to produce

And Truman's decision to drop nuclear weapons on civilian populations

It remains a stain on the Democratic party to this day

[Leontius]

4. No he shouldn't and no it does not.

[EX500rider]

6. Another Hiroshima thread already......

.....can I just link to the one we just had so we don't all have to retype all this? lol

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1409738